This Week’s Apple Rumors, Ranked From Dumbest to Most Plausible

Touch ID could get more secure in future generations of iOS. Photo: Jim Merithew/WIRED

Each week, there are dozens of rumors, reports, and patent filings that hint at what’s coming out of Cupertino next. And with WWDC fast approaching, the rumors are starting to heat up. Some are legit, but many are totally bogus. As always, we’ve parsed the rumors, ranking them in order from “utterly ridiculous” to “duh, of course.” First up…

DON’T COUNT ON IT: Alleged iPhone 6 Cases and Mockups Shown Off
We’ve seen a few iPhone 6 mockups so far, and apparently Japanese blog Macotakara (via 9to5Mac) discovered there were quite a few others being shown off at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair this year. On top of that, another supposed iPhone 6 case shows that Apple could be repositioning the power and volume buttons, with a layout similar to those on the iPod touch. It would also feature more rounded edges than the current iPhone. These mockups just follow other rumors we’ve heard — they may not bear any resemblance to the real deal when it debuts this fall.

DON’T COUNT ON IT: iPhone 6 Will Cost $100 More than the 5s
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek posits that Apple could up the price of the next iPhone by $100. The higher cost would primarily impact carriers at first, but could eventually trickle down to consumers’ pocketbooks too. According to Misek, carriers are reluctant to accept Apple’s proposed price hike, but they could settle for something in between the current $649 price tag and the $100 increase. With no other indicators of a price increase — and no precedent for Apple doing this in the past — we won’t hold our breaths for this one.

DON’T COUNT ON IT: Image of Supposed 4.7-Inch iPhone Mold Emerges
A leaked image this week shows what is claimed to be a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 mold next to an iPhone 4s for scale. Based on some clever Photoshop manipulations, Nowhereelse.fr estimates the mold fits a device 138mm x 64mm, which could fit a phone with a 4.7-inch display. The bottom of the mold, however, has the exact same dimensions as a mold for the iPhone 5s, so this part could also just be used to produce the latter.

DON’T COUNT ON IT: Leaked Photo Indicates Bigger Battery for iPhone 6
First uncovered by Nowhereelse.fr, leaked images of an alleged iPhone 6 front panel and a larger iPhone battery seem to indicate that the next iPhone will indeed gain some girth over its predecessors. A bigger battery goes hand-in-hand with a larger device, since the display is one of the most power-hungry parts of a smartphone or tablet. And jumping from a 4-inch to 4.7-inch or larger display in the next iPhone would surely place greater demands on the battery. But while the battery upgrade makes sense, there’s no telling if these photos are in fact legit. One thing’s for sure though: As we get closer to the anticipated launch date of the next iPhone, we’ll be seeing more and more of these photo leaks.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Marissa Mayer Pushing for Yahoo to be the Default iOS Search Engine
Apple’s been trying to distance itself from mortal enemy Google and Android, but would it consider ditching Google as the default search in Siri? Marissa Mayer hopes so. “This is the aim of the whole effort here, to grab the pole position in iOS search,” a source familiar with the matter told Re/Code. Apple already sources Yahoo for its stocks and weather information. But despite Yahoo’s efforts, Google is clearly still king, and if Apple wants to provide its users with the best experience, it’s going to have to stick with the company for the time being.

ASK AGAIN LATER: LG to Be the Only Supplier of iWatch Displays
A report out of Korea suggests that LG will be the only display supplier for Apple’s upcoming wearable device. Like we heard last week, this display is rumored to come in two different sizes. The device is expected to be released in September, and Apple hopes to sell 9 million units by the end of the year (compare that with sales of the iPhone 5s in 2013, whose sales topped 9 million units opening weekend alone). Apple does lean heavily on LG as a display and component supplier, so this doesn’t sound unreasonable.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Working On Song ID Feature With Shazam
According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on building a song recognition feature into iOS. It would let users find out the name and artist of a song that’s playing nearby by matching the audio sensed by the mic with a song database. Just the other week we heard that Apple could be dramatically revamping iTunes, and this could be part of that update. Bloomberg says this feature will be previewed at WWDC in June, and that it will work with Siri. For example, you could ask Siri “What song is playing?” and she would identify it.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Looking at Ways to Make the Passcode Stronger
This week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published two Apple patents pertaining to how Touch ID could be made secure. A third described how the company could bolster the password process on both Apple’s mobile products and Macs. Considering how truly insecure passwords and passcodes are, Apple would be silly not to be researching this area. The first of the Touch-ID related patents is for a type of fingerprint sensor itself, outlining how it would function. The second covers how fingerprint sensing could get even more secure through a “doodle mode.” Fingerprint sensing would take place on or underneath the display, so the device would recognize both your fingerprint and the pattern that you are drawing on the screen to authenticate you. The third patent application describes how a color-coded password gesture could be used to make non-biometric passcodes more secure. The patent art looks similar to the gesture-based passcode we’ve seen on Android devices for years, except that the method could also involve different colors to trace the path of your gesture.